Best High Schools in Zip Code 20814

Zip code 20814 in Bethesda, Maryland, is home to two highly-rated public high schools, Walter Johnson High School and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, both part of the Montgomery County Public Schools district, serving grades 9 through 12 in a well-regarded suburban area.

Walter Johnson High School stands out as the top performer, earning a 5-star rating for three consecutive years and ranking in the 93rd percentile statewide. It has a larger enrollment of 3,016 students and achieves an exceptional 85.1% ELA proficiency rate, far above the state average. However, its math proficiency is a surprisingly low 7.7%, a pattern also seen at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, which has 76.4% ELA proficiency but only 11.7% in math. This paradox likely stems from advanced students taking Algebra I in middle school, skewing high school math scores downward. Despite this, both schools boast strong graduation rates—93.5% at Walter Johnson and 94.0% at Bethesda-Chevy Chase—and dropout rates around 4.5%, roughly half the district average.

While Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School has a slightly lower student-to-teacher ratio (16.7:1) and higher per-student spending ($16,584), Walter Johnson High School achieves a higher state ranking and better ELA scores, suggesting factors like school culture and parental involvement drive the difference. Both schools serve economically diverse populations, with 19.83% to 23.94% of students receiving free/reduced lunch, yet they outperform state averages significantly. A shared challenge is chronic absenteeism, affecting over one-fifth of students (22.4% at Walter Johnson, 24.8% at Bethesda-Chevy Chase), which remains a concern despite high graduation rates.